Posted on 11/14/2006 7:07:00 PM PST by SJackson
Last night at Columbia's school of international affairs, Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector, and former Marine, opened a speech about Iran bracingly, by speaking not of Iran but about the "elephant in the room": Israel. He said that Israel is our close ally; and if Iran actually intends to develop nuclear weapons, not nuclear power (as the Iranian Ambassador had said, in the speech preceding Ritter's), and if Iran fails to repudiate Ahmedinejad's hateful rhetoric about Israel, well then, Israel's "legitimate national security concerns" are ours, and could even bring war. After all, Ritter said, one nuclear strike on an Israeli city and the small country would be deeply and permanently damaged.
The great thing about Ritter's speech, before an ambivalent UWS audience, was its bluntness. In that sense, his rhetoric reflected an important lesson of the Iraq war (which Ritter had opposed). We all know, or we ought to by now, that concern for Israel's security played a role in America's disastrous war plans. Yet as Philip Zelikow of the 9/11 commission has said, It was an agenda that dare not speak its name. It was generally cloaked in language about bringing democracy to the Middle East that reporters who knew better parroted. This lack of straightforwardness has damaged the country. It has corrupted our journalism and our thinktanks, it has caused enormous bitterness and mistrust—and justifiably. The feeling many Americans now have that they were lied to about the causes of one of the greatest mistakes in our history is going to echo through our lives for a long time...
I think the lack of straightforwardness reflected Jewish fears of antisemitism; that if a Christian nation was actually put to the test, and the alliance with Israel actually cost American lives, the American people would abandon Israel. And so the Middle East Forum likes to put up feel-good billboards saying, Israel's interest is also the American interest, and Israeli Ambassador Arens likes to say as he did in the Times yesterday that 9/11 put us and you in the same boat, got that? But attack Saddam in part because he has threatened Israel? Friends of Israel don't like to say that. They fear that the average American would do as Borat says they would do—and throw the Jews down the well. Thus: the Israel lobby, which acts to shield the issue from open public debate.
Last night, Ritter said, We're not going to abandon "my good friend, the state of Israel," and I'm going to put that agenda right on the table. Very post-Iraq. I wanted to hug him. Such transparency is essential, when we try to sort out what we're talking about when we talk about Iran.
Of course the sequel to all this is that in identifying this interest baldly, we get to scrutinize it, everyone gets to weigh in, even Americans who are appalled by Israel's racialism and militarism. Last night Ritter said that Israel is out of control, "drunk with hubris, arrogance and power." Jimmy Carter says in a book published tomorrow that Israel's policies in the West Bank are apartheid. And John Mearsheimer says that this small country's policies are hurting our standing throughout the Arab world, and America should therefore insist that Israel change its policies, and we should use our full powers to make that happen; and if Israel fails to heed us, change the relationship. There's a word for what Ritter, Carter and Mearsheimer are doing: discussing.
Comments
If it's Tuesday it must mean another polemic from little Phill Weiss about Jews and the LOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
What does he do, does he write about anything else, does he do anything else. Does he go to movies, to the beach. Or does he sit in a room and contemplate the evils of Judaism and Israel. Well Phil, I'm coming clean. We got America into the war. We're behind it all, All the wars, politics everywhere, Holloywood, and don't forget currency movements. Somehow we forgot to shut down Hitler, oops. But of course sacrificing a third of our people was just a brilliant strategic move to create israel and inflict upon the Palestinians, ( leaving aside the fact that when you said Palestinians before 1948 tu meant Jews ) the greatest disaster and oppression that has ever been inflicted by anyone on anyone. Yes Phil you got us. I submited your name to the elders for retribution but something must have got lost in the shuffle. But, continue on your brave quest to expose the Hebrew cabal. It's right up there with hiting the beach Iwo Jima, or going in front of HUAC in 1947, Or bucking Roland Freisler in 1943. The courage of litttle Philly Weiss in exposing us is astounding,
Posted by: Bill Pearlman | November 14, 2006 05:25 PM
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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I so pleased Scott Ritter is working. Speaking at Columbia is working, isn't it?
I don't think they have underage girls at Columbia though...poor Scottie.
LOL..I guess he has spent the money he got from the Iraqis to try to keep us out of their little WMD playground...
So he writes fiction books, and goes on the lefty campus circuit.
He got in touch with his inner Nazi.
Israel is the only Democracy in the Middle East, and as for the militarism, hog root or die. Since the late 30s, the Jews in Palestine have had to grow and keep sharp the claws, or they will be killed by Arabs who refuse to tolerate their presence, now even as an underclass. They are in the process of blotting out Lebanon, which had been a Christian enclave for many years. Now any one, not a Muslim, is suspect.
How much do our universities pay this punk to give these speeches? Is he going to earn his living for the rest of his life going around the lecture circuit?
The world is at a dangerous cross road with Iran and the threats it issues and the potential massive lethal capabilities its headed toward. If Iran's target were Dubai, would there be people out there blaming Dubai? I think not. But because the mullahs in their own inexplicably bizarre way are obsessive about wanting to kill Jews, we have to listen to ignorant attempts by sophists to blame the potential victim of Iran's wrath. Some times this Liberal cr*p doesn't deserve much cogitation. Some people hate America and Israel. It's not a whole lot more complicated than that. And some of those haters are Americans.
Good question. He's old news, I can't imagine paying him anything. A room at the Holiday Inn and dinner, maybe.
Amigo, Lebanon's had Christians since the beginning of the Christian faith. Islam has adherents fighting against all different faiths and nonbelievers all over the world. This menace is found anywhere where you find Moslems.
Amigo, Lebanon's had Christians since the beginning of the Christian faith. Islam has adherents fighting against all different faiths and nonbelievers all over the world. This menace is found anywhere where you find Moslems.
That documented pedophile Scott Ritter is still getting invited to give speeches??
Yeah, but college, not middle school
Yes, I know about rthe ancient presence of Christians in Lebanon. My understanding is that when the first Crusade occured, the majority people in the Levant were still Christian, that they weren't pressed to convert (or revert) because the Muslims wanted to collect the tax, It was only after the first Turkish invasions that the people were pressed into abandoning their faith. The Crusades didn't help, because the Muslims became ever more intolerant. IAC, I mean that the French influence led to a state separate from Syria.
Scot Ritter tried to meet a teen girl to masturbate in front of her. Israel needs critics like that (for a good laugh).
However, the author is correct, no rationa discourse is allowed. It has been largely poisoned by those wishing to see Jews killed. fancy that.
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